Suicide Prevention & Awareness Part 3

This three-part series is meant to promote suicide awareness, and we will be discussing suicide throughout. If you are feeling suicidal & need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-TALK – and get some support. There are also a ton of resources throughout this post. I truly hope you will stay alive and stay with us.

You are vast and needed.

On a personal note, thank you for the beautiful response to part 1 and part 2 of this series. I’ve been blown away by the love, kindness, and support I’ve received – both from my closest friends and from strangers worldwide. These blogs have been very challenging for me to write, and you’ve made this labor of love so incredibly worth it. It’s clearer to me than ever that we’re ready to get together & come up with creative ways to prevent people from dying by suicide.

In part 1 of this series, we covered general suicide stats & research, and I shared some personal opinions on the topic of suicide.

Today, we’ve got a lot to cover, so you might want to bookmark this to take it in bits & pieces. (Plus, you might want to save for easy access to the resources)! We’ll be talking about all things suicide prevention:

– The current research and which methods are working well.

– Protective factors; things that make people less likely to die by suicide.

– My thoughts about how each and every one of us can prevent suicide as we move forward.

…And, I’ll leave you with even more resources-a-plenty so you can get support whenever you need it & learn how to better support others.

These sections are clearly marked so feel free to skip down to what you’re looking for.

Here we go:

The current research in suicide prevention says…

One important thing to note is that everyone is different. There are MANY different options available to us when we’re looking for help.

Suicide is complex. There isn’t one cause or one solution; usually, not even within one person.

This variability is what makes prevention efforts tricky, and also what gives us so many choices for how we can impact this issue.

There are great things happening in suicide prevention and there are things that each of us can do.

What I noticed here is that good suicide prevention requires strong access points.

Where are suicidal people already connecting with other people and with service providers? How can we support these people where they already are? How can we start a conversation about suicide in those places?

This is not only helpful for preventing suicide in your employees. You’ll be better supporting any employee who’s lost a loved one to suicide, and anyone who deals with a mental health issue at any point while you’re managing them. Believe it or not, this likely describes at least 50% of your employees. (Maybe including you).

Many people think that someone who’s suicidal will just find another way, but a lot of research shows that isn’t true.

As I mentioned in Part 1, the decision to commit suicide is often impulsive, so reducing someones ability to access a gun or lethal means while their fleeting impulse passes can literally be life-saving.

As this psychiatrist suggests, we need to be willing to take a long hard look at the *real* causes of suicide, rather than chalking it all up to hormonal imbalance as we move forward with prevention. An antidepressant or antipsychotic is not always the answer to prevent suicide.

There is no one cause of suicide.

Many, many issues contribute to completed suicides – homelessness, accessibility of healthcare, health issues, and poverty, just to name a few. We need to address all of these things (and more) as we continue to approach this issue.

Factors that make us less likely to die by suicide…

We can all practice & encourage our loved ones to practice these things to prevent suicides.

When it comes to support, the more the better. Surround yourself with empowering people and invest in yourself when it feels good and right for you.

Strongly developed life skills, including emotional coping skills, problem-solving skills, resiliency, and adaptability when change hits are protective against suicide. Good self-esteem, a consistent sense of self, a sense of purpose in one’s life – all protective against suicide, so they’re also worth prioritizing, too. (Mental Wholeness could help strengthen all of these).

Finally, holding strong cultural or religious beliefs that discourage suicide is a protective factor. On the other hand, strong religious beliefs causing shame & guilt or feeling cast-out by your religious group can be a risk factor too, so this one isn’t always straightforward. We’re going to talk more about spirituality in the next section.

Prepare your knowledge about suicide prevention resources in case someone who needs your help opens up to you. Congratulations – if you’re still reading this blog you’re already off to a great start! I’ll leave you with even more resources at the end.

Once you’ve covered those basics, I believe your best steps to contribute to suicide prevention today are:

Address the parts of your mind that contribute to stigma.

Your mind is very powerful. You are creating your own reality every single day whether you realize it or not. You have the ability to shift & change the way your mind is working for you.

It’s all too common to dismiss ourselves and others as being crazy, as attention-seeking, or as being lazy… whatever-the-hell judgment we find suitable to put on ourselves & others.

On autopilot, we operate on subconscious patterns & beliefs that keep our needs met in a very, very basic way – like “stay alive” and “keep love” without distinguishing the kind of love and life that we *really* want to create for ourselves.

When we interact with people, our patterns and beliefs are impacting them too, even if we don’t realize it.

When you feel love, understanding, and acceptance of the topics of mental health and suicide, you will become a safe place where people can connect with support. That effect will spread out all over your world.

We need to become aware when we’re perpetuating the narrative that mental health or suicide is weird, scary, and bad – something to be avoided altogether.

We need to adjust our expectations of ourselves and others to be more realistic & supportive for our overall mental health & wellness.

Mental health and wholeness don’t always look like they “should”. It might not mean showering every day, having the energy to say “yes” to every invitation, never watching TV, exercising every day, or even getting out of bed every day.

What matters most is how we feel. What matters is that we’re able to discern what feels good and right for us, and are able to act on that knowledge.

We need to let go of harsh judgments of ourselves and others to create a world where everyone is free to be themselves.

For me, when I’m feeling suicidal, or when I’m at my lowest and loneliest, my connection with myself and my faith is always at the center of my experience. When I’m willing to go ever deeper with myself & my calling, those suicidal thoughts simply cannot survive.

Will you connect more deeply with yourself & a greater purpose? Will you encourage other people to do the same?

My lowest moments are offering me my clearest next steps. They’re providing me insight into exactly what I care the most about, providing my marching orders that I can use to impact the world with my passion and my natural gifts.

These moments are my opportunities to discover and flex my psychic strength. They’re the moments when I feel closest to the “other” side and the moments when I feel most sensitive – the perfect opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of my purpose & my unique sensitivities.

In those moments, I only need to hold on, stay patient, and be open to the messages that are ready to come through… from deep inside of me, AND from a purpose-driven force.

We can all live our lives like this and support each other through this process. It’s a path of really deep fulfillment and almost constant awe.

When we’re grounded in ourselves and driven faithfully by a higher purpose, we create ripples of meaningful change in the world.

Some actions you can take to connect with yourself and something greater (maybe God, maybe the Earth, maybe the universe – what calls to you?):

Be generous with your love, caring, and energy – start by being generous with yourself.

Get outside and bask in the wonder of nature – whatever kind of nature you prefer.

From there, connect on a deeper level with the people around you.

I often see people sharing about suicide awareness and encouraging all of us to check on each other, especially in the wake of very public, unexpected suicides like Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, or Kate Spade, or on days geared towards awareness.

My questions for you:

Do you really check in on your people? When you suspect someone is suicidal, do you ask them directly about it? And, if you do, are you really ready and willing to hear the truth – without necessarily trying to jump in and change it?

Are you prepared to listen & connect with that person without judgment?

If you’re the person receiving a reach out, and maybe you’re feeling suicidal – are you willing to go deep with yourself to receive the love from the people around you? Are you willing to connect to the universe & find strategies for coping that work better for you?

(No bad answers here – just awareness).

It’s shown time and time again that connection is an essential part of our life.

Lack of connection is a risk factor for suicide, and feeling connected to others is a protective factor. Connection is a spectrum we ALL fluctuate on at least a little bit – we all feel lonelier in some moments and more loved in others.

Prioritizing true, deep connection, for many of us, is not what we’re used to.

We’ve been raised in a culture that places more value on competition than connection.

Relationships are messy. We won’t always have the right words or know how to address each other, especially when times get rough.

What we need is a willingness to sit vulnerably, honestly as ourselves with each other – without walls, without judgment.

We need to be willing to engage around the topic of suicide when the situation calls for it.

When we can ask each other openly about suicidal feelings & talk about suicide without fearful emotional responses, we’ll be better able to support each other on a regular basis.

If we all focus on connecting more deeply with the people around us, we’ll have an impact on the issue of suicide.

It’s time to be intentional about shifting our values towards deeper connection as a society so that we’re able to love each other and lift each other up consistently.

Would you like to stay in touch with me? We’d love to have you over in my free FB group, The Cocoon. Or, shoot me an email and let me know what you thought of this series – info@briannamcinerny.com. I would love to hear from you!